Before anyone can answer that question. How often will you be using that path or for that matter, anyone else? Feasiblity of maintain that path is dependent on your answer to this question. It will be high maintenance since that's quite a distance to maintain just as any road requires some form of maintenance. If there's high foot traffic, then whoever walks thru helps in maintaining that path in the course of just walking through the area. Sometimes even animals will help by using the path.

I for one love the idea of scenic hiking trails but all these requires the help of park rangers maintaining the paths. Is that something you have time to do?

Ianna

A bush hog mower would undoubtedly be useful to have....

Ianna,

Maybe we would use it a few times a month ...

We have gardeners who take care of our property. They have been with the property for 15+ years and they do a wonderful job. But the PO created many beds and lawns and other things that require a great deal to maintain. They literally used a dumptruck full of mulch this spring, and a lot of man hours spreading it!

Of course, all of this is a big part of why we bought the property, so we accept it.

But, if someone said, for example, you will need to mulch the whole trail every year, I'd decide it was too much to add to our gardening expenditures.

We have trails cut through the woods behind us, and go through a couple of times a year with a weedwhacker to clear the honeysuckle. They stay pretty well clear with just that, of course they are not wide trails, just about what you would cut with two passes of a lawn mower if you could use one back there, and not perfectly smooth. There are a few rough spots. The deer also use the trails, and they help keep them open also. We never mulch, just what leaves fall but regular use keeps the leaves crunched down. Once in a while when we walk back there we carry pruners and cut out what few little trees and branches get in the way and overhang the trails. We really enjoy being able to get in there and see the wildlife and wildflowers.

Sandy

Sandy, thank you! It is so helpful to hear from someone who has done this. I think we will start figuring out where we want the trail!

I don't know if you would consider then a naturalized garden. That is to allow grass to grow tall and unmowed in certain areas and to cut down path using a lawn mower.

This may be a throw to the times of when huge estates in the UK, cultivated a natural look to their landscape. The UK went to an interesting period of planting trees to create many woodlands and to create many many paths for people to use in exploring their landscapes.

Naturalized woodland gardens can incorporate flowers too. Check out Piet Oudolf's style of gardens.

Here is a link that might be useful: mowed path

I think a lot would depend on your soil type, moisture levels, and amount of shade. With less sunlight there will probably be less mowing and maintenance. We live on an old dairy farm that has reverted to fairly dense woods over the last 70 or so years. We maintain trails through our woods, probably in the range of 2 miles or so that get used for XC skiing, snowshoeing, walking, and the neighbors' horseback riding. We own a small tractor (not a lawn tractor) and the trails all get mowed with the tractor pulling a brush hog (very large mower) about once a year. We also end up doing some trimming back of tree limbs that have grown into the space using heavy duty loppers. If a tree comes down on the path that gets removed with a chain saw. So it is some work, but we really do end up using the paths, though more in cool weather when the bugs aren't bad.

Before doing a lot of work on this, try walking in the wood now, and see if it is too buggy for you to enjoy. Would you use it spring and fall when it's too cool for bugs? Would you use it in the winter for walking or snow sports? Are ticks that carry disease a major problem in your area? Answering these questions might help you decide whether the effort would be worthwhile.

Thanks, NH Babs. We did walk it. It is a wooded hillside that looks over our property and pond. However, because of the density, you really can't see anything. We like the density from the other side, though. So I am not sure what we will do ...

If you are mulching the paths, it would depend on how deep the mulch is and how big the pieces are. You could potentially re-mulch every other year, maybe every 2 years. Another question would be how maintained do you want it? We have 5 acres and hope to one day have paths that meander throughout the entire property but that is some time away for us, but areas that we trek along more frequently are more worn dow. One permanent method of outlining the paths would be with gravel and then it can be easily weeded with a flame weeder.

I don't think mulching is necessary. On our old property, there were trails through the woods and just using the snow mobile a few times in the winter was enough to keep it serviceable, but I don't know if I'd like to walk on it.

One important thing to keep in mind are ticks. If you do not want ticks, you will need to keep any grass/brush short on the trail, since ticks generally grab onto a person while they are walking through tall grass.

This isn't a big deal - like some have said, a bush hog would be beneficial so you could just go down the trail with that thing and be on your way. I don't think you need mulch unless you want to make it more formal.

I personally am terrified of ticks so I would insist on any brush being cut consistently.